Angela Davis, Pam Grier, Alice Walker, Michelle Obama. Revolutionary black women have evoked strong reaction throughout American history. Magazines, political campaigns, music, television, and movies have relied upon deep-seated archetypes and habitually cast strong, countercultural black women as mammies and sexual objects. In Iconic Lakesia Johnson explores how this belittling imagery is imposed by American media, revealing an immense cultural fear of black women's power and potential.

But the media does not have the last word. Johnson chronicles how strong black women—truly revolutionary black women—have nonetheless taken control of their own imaging despite consistent negative characterizations. Through their speech, demeanor, fashion, and social relationships, women from Sojourner Truth to Michelle Obama have counteracted these depictions. With ingenuity, fortitude, and focus on the greater good, these revolutionary women transformed the cultural images of themselves and, simultaneously, those of American black women as a whole.

Seamlessly weaving together role models of past and present, from women in politics to artists and musicians, Johnson eloquently demonstrates how the revolutionary black woman in many public forums has been—and continues to be—a central figure in challenging long-standing social injustices.

1. The Myth of the Angry Black Woman: From Sojourner Truth to Michelle Obama2. Revolutionary Black Women in the News: The Politics of Angela Davis and Kathleen Cleaver3. Revolutionary Black Women in Film: Blaxploitation and the Legacy of Pam Grier4. Revolutionary Black Women in Literature: The Narratives of Alice Walker and Audre Lorde5. Revolutionary Black Women and Music: The Hip-Hop Feminism of Erykah Badu and Me'shell Ndegéocello6. The Many Images of the Revolutionary Black Woman: Michelle Obama Reconsidered

Notes Filmography Bibliography Index

"... insightful.... [Johnson] does a masterful job of demonstrating how revolutionary black women have miraculously maintained control of their images in the face of a flood of negative characterizations."

"A timely and accessible interdisciplinary work on the politics implicit in representations of black 'revolutionary' women in the media—Lakesia Johnson's Iconic enhances the contemporary critical exploration of politicized black women and those operating in the glare of the political spotlight."